In recent years, particularly with the advent of high-speed rail travel, it has become increasingly important to elastically mount the rails of a rail vehicle system and thereby provide shock and acoustic damping between the rail and the bed or foundation.
It is known, for example to provide an elastic mount below the base or foot of the rail in the form of an elastic pad or layer.
In practice it is found that such elastic beds provide little or no acoustic damping.
It is customary to provide beneath the rail-supporting sleepers or ties, metal plates supported by sound-damping mounts. With such mounts, the rails bear directly upon the sleepers while the sleepers transmit force via inclined peripherally located elastic layers to the mount frame which is connected to the foundation or underlying bed structure (German open application No. 28 28 713).
Such mounts have been found to be highly effective for sound-damping purposes although they are not applicable to all locations, i.e. cannot be installed in a universal manner at all sites at which sound damping is required. The problem in some locations is that there may be a lack of available space in which to accommodate such mounts. This is particularly the case in so-called street railways and in tunnels where space for accommodating any mounting structure for the rails is at a premium.